Topic: 500/550/650's that followed me home

[RAFster122s]

Sorry to read about the bugs going after the paint. Yeah, funny how some colors have odd smells. At least you aren't dealing with Cali low voc paints...I understand they can be a pain to work with...

[rb550four]

  Bugs ,wind ,humidity or temperature....such is the life of of a shade tree painter. It's all fun and games you know. And  really, where the bikes are is where I'd rather be, even if I have to do it twice..
  A few months before Covid I cleared out a decent sized room in the barn  for painting indoors instead of outside,thought I should at least try to get serious about painting and not have to worry about overspray in the shop or other outdoor forces dictating my schedule. Then, Daughter and Grand- daughter moved to our house and that space turned into the 3 season school house when the schools shut down. I'll get it back when the little one can get vaccinated and go to school someday, I guess. But until then, like George Thoroughgood says" I'm outdoors you know people".

[rb550four]

   So yesterday I shot  all the parts that I might want to be yellow, looked allot like a school bus yellow when it was wet ,but since it's a base coat clear coat , it dries dull . So I can hardly wait to get home and check it out. Open the door and there's all the parts . This should be exciting, right ,  but everything looked more like a gallon bottle of Arm and Hammer laundry detergent , that color yellow.
   Well the bugs came off alright, no harm done and I couldn't make up my mind if I should just go ahead and shoot the flake or start over. Then I recalled a parts store lacquer paint job I did on a 500 years ago,couldn't make up my mind about that one either but I shot a clear coat of lacquer over it anyways and it looked pickeled / dull.... and I was sick about the whole thing even though I could have buffed it to a shine. Well, I shot it black cherry and thought it was buried. Maybe I should have used a different clear coat on that first paint job...I had painter's remorse. I should have salvaged it because I still find myself thinking of that one. So today I decided to finish the job with the flake in clear so even if I hate it there will be no remorse.
     Shot  a fog coat and the hard to get areas, then 3 wet coats and put it  all in the barn. when it was tack I brought it out in the evening sun to see if there was overall improvement . Well I almost wet my draws with excitement when that tank came out of the barn and out into the sunshine. I've gone back a few times and checked it under artificial lighting....and still like it. It just glistens even without a clear no flake topcoat.
     Planning on black out panels, maybe with a multi color microflake to give it just a hint of a prism effect, maybe not, don't know yet.
Pics will be coming tomorrow if there is decent sun.
   David, thanks for this idea, I'm really enjoying this and the outcome is oh so much better than metal flake color coat, there's just no reason to do it any other way from now on.

[RAFster122s]

I am happy it has turned out well and you like it. Look forward to seeing some pics. I know it is hard to capture in photos.

Imagine you can do this with other colors too.
Opens up room to play...

David

[rb550four]

  I did the body work on this tank,it was in so so condition,got the rust out and sealed it with POR 15, primed it and shot a base coat of
school bus yellow photo 1 and 2.
  Photo 3 is the 3 little girls that need to get this kind of paint job next time.
  Photos 4-9 initial clear coat with micro flakes in it.
  Photo 10 is the outside line and there will be a painted in stripe.
  Photo 11 on the inside of the outer line I add 2 very thin tape lines with just a tiny line between the tape because the center tape will
be removed leaving an undamaged thin line of tape ( because it wasn't overlapping each other) the inside tape will stay thru the black  paint and will be removed later.
    Photo 12  - 15 is one side or the other of the tank with and without removed inner  tape  .   
Photo    16 is cover  everything  else
  Paint and  strip  off the tape  while the paint is tack and this is what you get.
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipN91ZePX7Hxjtwmp6Zn2ZHvRRfBDgr5qh6YJQCY

[RAFster122s]

Rich, either I caught you before you finished or pics didn’t come through...

[rb550four]

maybe this works? I miss the ease of photo bucket.

[rb550four]

working now?

[rb550four]

 looks like it's working

[rb550four]

  A few more coats of clear to fill the low spots, the flakes makes it bumpy, it's not orange peeled. Some wet sanding should get all the clear coat smooth, I don't want to sand the glitter . Then it'll get another wet coat, that ought to do it , unless something terrible happens. Today I sprayed a multi color over the large black out ,not the black pinstripe that stays black with a white pinstripe around that. That's the plan anyways.

[RAFster122s]

Looks great 👍!  Imagine in bright sun it is as dazzling as I recall!  Bury the flake in clear if you can afford to...

[seanbarney41]

Nice job!...you are inspiring me to try and do my own paint

[rb550four]

 Why not give it a try sometime?
So far I'm stuck in a weather issue and have been unable to get it done. The  temps dropped from t he high 80's down to the 50's daytime temps and near freezing for a couple nights...and it's been raining ever since. Humidity is too high and the temps are still too low to paint. I was planning on dropping a couple coats a day so the coats would bond to each other , then sand and shoot some finish coats, now  it's a crap shoot . But we'll carry on when the weather breaks and see what happens.   

[rb550four]

  Today was a sunny warmer day. I finished the cedar shake roof job early that I was working on for the last couple weeks. Got home early and set up, and got an extra 2 clear coats on everything and so far it's looking good and smooth. We'll see how much it shrinks back when it's dry.

[rb550four]

    Okay it's later ,  and that paint is dry to the touch and smooth except for a few minor bumps . I really like the depth of it all without going with ten more coats of clear.  Next is to use a wet kitchen sponge and wrap it with some fine wet sand paper so the pressure from fingers is spread out over the sponge and it will sand evenly, with no heavily sanded areas from finger pressure that one can get without using a sponge. Sqweegee the wet sanded spots every now and then so's to be sure that no spots were missed and it is as smooth as it's going to be without over sanding. Being sure to add water regularly as I go to lube the sand paper so it doesn't burn the c/c paint instead of cut the paint . The water also keeps the surface clean so the freshly cut c/c doesn't ball up under the paper and try to re stick itself to the surface leaving either little balls of plastic or sticky plastic skidmarks on the surface because it's stuck to the paper. It all counts, so I'm gonna do what I can , then hit the surface with 1 or two wet coats and call it done. Right now I'm very happy with it all and think I could get away with cutter polish but, I want to do it the hard way. I'll use the cutter polish by hand if there is a need to after it's all totally dry. It'll still shine like it was waxed but It can be waxed 30 days later without worry. That's the way I do it.

[RAFster122s]

Congrats on wrapping up the cedar shake job and getting a couple coats of clear on.

[rb550four]

 I wet sanded the tank today, lettered HONDA on the tank in gray vinyl and shot a few more coats. It was looking great and then I said one more wet coat ought to do it only because I had enough in the gun to do it. Yeah , you know what I did. Gave it the last wet coat , it was like glass so I put it inside before bugs find it, cleaned the gun and went back to look and see. Yup, perfect ,except for the massive run that started on one side of the tank. Should have dumped that clear and cleaned the gun . The last wet coat was just a liiitttle too much. Now it's a wait and see tomorrow just how big of a repair job it's gonna be,. It'll involve more wet sanding, careful wet sanding for sure as the drip ran over the H on the Honda print and on the black out area. So the repair can be isolated inside the pinstripes. We'll see tomorrow. This kind of thing happens , it's not the end of the world and yes ,it's all fun.

[Kelly E]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that does stuff like that. I did the same thing to my 550 tank with black paint. It was perfect until I did one more coat.

[rb550four]

This is what I have so far. A little sanding and a clear reshoot inside the stripes  still need to be done, but I'm allot closer to the finish than I was last week.
 

[RAFster122s]

Wow!  Looks great! Look forward to seeing it assembled and out in the sun...
It is definitely a twist of how flake paint jobs are done and unique enough to grab your attention out in the sun.

[rb550four]

   Thanks David, I've got a repair to make and re shoot before anything goes back together. It's been overcast on and off all day so I haven't gotten a chance to see it really shine after the last clear coat yesterday.  It was a great idea you had there, and got me to push it all a little further than usual. I like the hint of old school with a hint of what's happening now. I don't know if it can be called an upgrade on the original paint scheme but I'm digging it. It's fun. These painted parts are replacing one of the red single stage paint jobs that I applied when my house was like a Honda rebuild factory , just needed to get them done mechanically correct and presentable even if I wasn't wild about the color I painted. So I've been backtracking over some of those builds and finally playing with the finish after years of parts switching. Finding overall satisfaction with each machine now seems achievable.
 Haven't chosen the next one yet, but I can feel it coming on cause the wheels are starting to turn again. What do you think about purple, don't have one of that yet, maybe like the 70's Plymouth Barracuda ,with some sort of flake? Air brush design or is that usually too funky? Black racing stripe? with or without blackout panel? Been toying with  the idea of a multi color flake toward the front of the tank that kinda fades into just the aluminium color flake midway to the end , or would it be better to run the alum. flake all around and fade the color flake over the top of that. Sorry , been eating lotsa junk food again,probably on a sugar high...do any of these ideas sound interesting and fun?

[Kelly E]

I can see a nice deep purple with the aluminium flake and a black stripe with a black pinstripe along each side of the stripe. Put the stripes on the sides so the Honda logos are in the center of the stripes.

[rb550four]

Thanks for the input Kelly,sounds like we are getting close to a design.
I have a stock  81 Wing with a partial panel pinstripe on the "tank"/glovebox, perhaps something like that and a horizontal thicker stripe beneath it extending to the forward most shape ( about 3 inches from the very front edge ) with the logo just above the stripe, out there all alone in the purple area.
  A partial black out, halfways forward  from the rear with a similar or slant return at the top of the most forward peak with a  semi connected racing stripe beneath it extending forward, over purple field with aluminum flake, with the logo in the purple vacant are just above the stripe  partially surrounded by pinstripes. That 's a bit closer now. But should the black pinstripes and outside  partial black out boarder have it's own white pinstripe around that for contrast? Hmmmm.
   I have done stripe before so I'm just trying to mix it up a little  see reply #63  on page 3 of http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,137317file:///C:/Users/Rich's%20Keep%20Out/Desktop/New%20folder/DSCN0865.JPG.msg1576960.html#msg1576960

[RAFster122s]

Don't they have prismatic flake? Shooting the forward section in the prismatic or colored flake could be interesting.
Don't they sometime do ghost flames with  a pearl clear coat in the design. Ghost flames were a fad for a while...
I doubt the tank will photograph in either photos or video to capture the effect like it is in real life. I liked the effect and am glad you do as well.
It really pops in yellow and imagine it would be pretty cool in other colors too.
Look forward to seeing the fun you have with it!

[rb550four]

  Yes , ghost flames was all the rage for a  while. I did a close metal flake red ghost flames over a metal flake sunrise orange a few years back on my favorite 500 (which is now powered by a 550).
I was changing back to a black headlight bucket from a failed chrome painted bucket and changing out the handlebar controls last week and thought  , my this looks dated. So I whipped out the pinstripe tape in black, outlined the flame and brought it back  even further....I can live with it for a while,  and see if I should have done it in white later.  Thinking that if i like the white outline I could airbrush a little yellow to the design just to wake it up a little , add some glitter to the flame only, then shoot a white pinstripe to highlight the flame.
   Back to the purple idea. Yes I might be interested in doing a prismatic flake on the front of the tank and fade it back midway, so the underlying glitter on the rest of the tank can come thru clearly and not interfere with the partial blackout panel and stripe.
   Yes , this is fun.